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APL Wiki:Content guidelines: Difference between revisions
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Dialect-specific pages
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A language can be prominent even if it is very rarely used, or in extreme cases never implemented. This is the case for research languages that are important in developing features later picked up by more prominent APLs. For example, [[A Dictionary of APL]], while only an incomplete description of how one APL might work, strongly influenced [[J]] and subsequently [[Dyalog APL]]. [[Extended Dyalog APL]], used infrequently in the [[code golf]] community, has also had a significant influence on [[Dyalog APL]]. The APL Wiki should include information about these languages because they will likely continue to influence APL's direction in the future. However, it's also important to make sure that this information, which is of theoretical interest, doesn't interfere with practical content. It should generally be placed lower in articles or sections of articles, and the text should make it clear that this material probably doesn't apply to the reader's APL of choice, usually by specifying which language or languages it is taken from. | A language can be prominent even if it is very rarely used, or in extreme cases never implemented. This is the case for research languages that are important in developing features later picked up by more prominent APLs. For example, [[A Dictionary of APL]], while only an incomplete description of how one APL might work, strongly influenced [[J]] and subsequently [[Dyalog APL]]. [[Extended Dyalog APL]], used infrequently in the [[code golf]] community, has also had a significant influence on [[Dyalog APL]]. The APL Wiki should include information about these languages because they will likely continue to influence APL's direction in the future. However, it's also important to make sure that this information, which is of theoretical interest, doesn't interfere with practical content. It should generally be placed lower in articles or sections of articles, and the text should make it clear that this material probably doesn't apply to the reader's APL of choice, usually by specifying which language or languages it is taken from. | ||
== Dialect-specific pages == | |||
It is completely acceptable to have a page that applies to a single dialect of APL only. There are two circumstances in which this might make sense: | |||
* For encyclopedic [[:Category:Articles|articles]], when a concept or feature is only present in one dialect. | |||
* For non-encyclopedic [[:Category:Essays|essays]], when using a particular APL makes examples and discussion clearer or more concrete. | |||
For articles, if a concept applies to multiple dialects, it would be inappropriate to write it from the perspective of a single dialect. However, there is no need to acquire an exhaustive knowledge of other APL dialects before writing an article. If you know another dialect has the feature you want to write about, but don't know how it might differ from the one you know about, simply indicate that any other dialects as part of a list of languages with the feature (probably in the introduction), and write the rest of the article about the dialect you know. Be sure to make it clear that you are writing only about a specific dialect, so that readers know the information might not apply to every APL. It is much more important to avoid incorrect information from making assumptions about an unfamiliar dialect than to make a particular article as general as possible. When writing an essay, such as a tutorial or example, the requirement to mention other dialects doesn't apply: simply make sure the reader knows which APL you are using. | |||
In a dialect-specific article, you can assume (because you have told the reader) that the reader knows the page pertains to one APL only. This means it's acceptable to use terms like [[Disclose]] that are ambiguous in general but have only one meaning in the context of that APL, or terms like [[tradfn]] that many parts of the APL community don't use. Despite this, your primary aim should be to make the article useful for a general reader, who might never have heard of this APL. Use terminology which would be most readable for the wider APL community while remaining intelligible from the specific dialect's perspective. If there is no single term that fits, use a dialect-specific one but clarify by mentioning an identical or analogous term in parentheses. | |||
For articles about a specific dialect (such as [[A+]]), the emphasis is in the other direction: '''always give a language's preferred terminology on its own page''' when there is a clear preference. In order to make the page usable for general APL programmers, clarify terminology which is not obvious in parentheses: for example, the page on [[K]] lists the function "flip ([[Transpose]])". | |||
Use the principle of [[#Due weight|due weight]] when deciding whether and how to link to a dialect-specific article elsewhere on the APL Wiki. If a concept is closely related to a better known one, it probably deserves a link, but the link should be in a less prominent position if the dialect with that concept is obscure. Less closely related concepts or non-obvious connections (for example, [[Raze]] is a left inverse of [[Partition]] and [[Partitioned Enclose]] on vectors) may or may not merit a link. | |||
== Verifiability == | == Verifiability == | ||